Tag: postgraduate

  • What’s in the post-16 white paper for postgraduate study?

    What’s in the post-16 white paper for postgraduate study?

    The term “postgraduate” appears exactly 14 times in the Post-16 Education and Skills white paper : a clear improvement over 2021s Skills for Jobs (a mere two mentions in the appendix) and one more than 2016s Success as a Knowledge Economy (the one with the actual postgraduate student loans).

    So it looks like, more so than I’d personally have expected, “post-16” really does include “postgraduate” for once. But what does that mean?

    Fees & maintenance

    The obvious place to start is with the big headline: the planned increase to maximum tuition fees in the next two parliaments and the legislation to enable this to happen automatically thereafter. There’s also the (re)commitment to increase maintenance loans each year (I’ll leave Jim to explain what’s wrong with that).

    None of this really impacts postgraduate Masters and PhD students. Masters loans will also continue to increase with forecast inflation, but fees aren’t regulated and still aren’t properly monitored, despite promises to do so in 2016. PhD fees are largely shaped by the size of UKRI studentships, about which more below.

    I do think it’s interesting to consider what these undergraduate changes will do to perceptions of postgraduate fees. Will the cost of an MA or MSc provoke less sticker shock once BA and BSc fees (very quickly) cross the £10k rubicon? Or will greater undergraduate student loan debt make another £13k or so for a Masters feel less palatable?

    Personally, I think this stuff could end up mattering a lot, particularly if the government wants to improve postgraduate participation. Which apparently it does.

    Postgraduate participation

    We’re told that the government will “for the first time seek to address the barriers faced by disadvantaged students in accessing and succeeding at postgraduate level.”

    It’s fascinating to think about what this actually means.

    On access right now, little is known and less is done. There are some pockets of committed good work, often spotlighted here on Wonkhe and often supported by organisations like UKCGE (who I’m pleased to see will be funded to develop their involvement). But I can still point to data across our platforms demonstrating that postgraduate participation often looks very different to postgraduate interest.

    Postgraduate success, meanwhile, isn’t included in OfS B3 metrics and there’s still no postgraduate TEF. That means that, whilst continuation to a Masters records a good outcome for a university, progression from there isn’t really evaluated. The closest we have is LEO, which, though cited as “one of the best data sources” to drive informed student choices, is a crude and lagged metric taking no account of someone’s background.

    But what’s most intriguing is that all of this appears in relation to Access and Participation Plans.

    APPs determine a university’s ability to charge the higher undergraduate fee level. Postgraduate fees aren’t regulated, which leads to some of the mess around postgraduate funding. What’s here clearly isn’t a proposal to start scrutinising and intervening around PG fees but – like several other parts of the white paper – talking in this way is a potential step towards fundamental change.

    Home-grown PGR

    The white paper actually has a lot more to say about PhDs than it does about Masters degrees. Here’s where we find the most specific references to barriers faced by disadvantaged students and to challenges faced within specific subject areas.

    Here’s also where we find repeated references to a ‘home grown’ pipeline for UK research talent. Again, this is an interesting distinction to make. One of the few major interventions in PhD funding in recent years was the decision to open 30 per cent of UKRI studentships to international applicants from 2021. It hasn’t had a big impact on enrolments but it has meant more students – of all origins – competing for the same broad pot.

    The specific policy is light here (lots of verbs like ‘explore’ and ‘consider’) but prioritising domestic PhDs leads naturally to thinking about interventions around domestic funding.

    Elsewhere there are much clearer and very positive changes to medical and parental leave for UKRI-funded PhD students. This is explicitly framed as bringing conditions in line with employment law and therefore a step towards recognising that PhD students aren’t just students. Of course, this only applies directly to the relatively small proportion of students funded by UKRI.

    Post 16 postgraduate

    This is the first white paper in around ten years with a meaningful amount to say about postgraduate study. It does seem to understand what some of the key problems are and it seems to appreciate that PG is part of a joined-up system.

    There are other questions to ask – there’s little on Masters study and the perverse quirk of the international fee levy robbing PG to pay for UG feels worth scrutinising – but for once the government is asking questions about PG too. That is a good thing.

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  • Have we taken our eyes off the postgraduate student experience?

    Have we taken our eyes off the postgraduate student experience?

    We know a lot about undergraduate student experience and how these students experience life at university, especially when it comes to considering a sense of belonging.

    However, our understanding of the postgraduate student experience is arguably lacking compared to what we know about the experiences of their undergraduate counterparts.

    Despite growing numbers and increasing strategic importance, postgraduate students remain largely invisible in both published research and institutional strategy.

    As Katharine Hubbard recently pointed out on Wonkhe, despite the large and diverse postgraduate population within UK higher education institutions the equity of outcomes conversation rarely extends to consider postgraduates. Amid financial pressures, universities are increasingly market-driven, often prioritising initiatives that enhance the undergraduate experience. Yet, in 2023-24, UK institutions awarded more postgraduate qualifications than undergraduate ones, generating what was (in 2022-23) an estimated £1.7 billion in income. So why aren’t we paying more attention to how they experience university?

    Working out the scenario

    There is growing recognition that the postgraduate taught (PGT) student experience is qualitatively distinct from that of undergraduates. Postgraduate taught courses, often one-year-long Master’s degrees, attract students with varying motivations and expectations, who may also be facing challenges in pursuing their studies. For example, PGT students often face compressed timelines, intense academic demands and limited opportunities for social and academic integration due to the short duration of their courses. They often return to study after time in the workforce and may be juggling additional responsibilities such as paid work, caregiving or visa constraints alongside their studies.

    A one-size-fits-all student support model applied to all taught students assumes some equivalence across the needs of undergraduate and postgraduate student cohorts, but we know that students are not homogenous. We need to approach the design and delivery of postgraduate courses without the assumptions that postgraduate students are inherently more autonomous or resilient as this can lead to a lack of tailored academic support, limited personal tutoring and underdeveloped community-building initiatives.

    This neglect is particularly concerning given the strategic importance of PGT students to institutional and national agendas: the development of skilled employment sectors, and investment in the research pipeline (not to mention the role PGT fees play in supporting) institutional finances. Yet, as has been shown in recent Advance HE-led Postgraduate Taught Experience Surveys, without adequate support, many PGT students report feeling isolated, academically underprepared or unsupported in navigating career pathways post-graduation.

    Reacting to wider trends

    The past decade has seen a boom in research into the undergraduate student experience, but efforts to understand the experience of PGT students is evidently lagging behind. For every single peer-reviewed article published on how postgraduate students experience belonging, thirteen are published on undergraduates. As a sector, what should we do about this?

    To address this imbalance, institutions need to recognise that postgraduate students are not undergraduate students; they have different expectations and therefore need to be responded to differently. Institutions need to stop trying to apply an undergraduate student experience lens to postgraduate student cohorts – let’s all look outside the lens.

    And we need to stop making assumptions about our postgraduate students and ask better questions. Who are our postgraduate students? How many are alumni? How many commute? How is information like this being used to shape the welcome and induction offering that is given to these students? This is all central to fully understanding the challenge.

    The hidden curriculum

    There is also a need to think about how information about specific postgraduate cohorts is being disseminated to the staff involved in teaching and supporting these cohorts? Our own surveys of PGT students have identified multiple examples of international students who have spent weeks navigating unfamiliar academic cultures and trying to decipher the “hidden curriculum” of academia.

    An example from one institution highlighted multiple international students believing that the institutional virtual learning environment “Blackboard” that they often heard being referred to, was an actual chalk-based blackboard that everyone else knew where it was located, except for them. That is not a failure of the students but of communication with them.

    Higher education institutions need to ensure that students experiencing the compressed timescales that many PGT students face, being enrolled on a year-long course, are still able to access equitable opportunities for student support, personal and professional development and career services. Lengthy wait times, drawn-out applications or referral processes are unlikely to meet the needs of students enrolled on the intensive and relatively short courses which reflect many PGT programmes. Postgraduate students still need the wrap around support that undergraduate students need!

    Postgraduate students are so much more than an extension of the undergraduate community. They are purposeful, motivated and diverse and form a vital component of the academic community. We need to ensure that we, as an academic community, are not taking our eyes off this crucial population of students who are essential both for the success of individual institutions and the wider sector as a whole.

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  • Fixing the potholes in postgraduate funding

    Fixing the potholes in postgraduate funding

    A birds-eye view quickly reveals the inadequacy and complexity of UK postgraduate student finance, as four systems operate (and awkwardly overlap) in a world of high tuition fees and rising living costs.

    As practitioners, we have a much more ground level perspective: seeing how students struggle through these systems in practice and witnessing the winners and losers who result from a system that should, at least in principle, be equally useful to all.

    With the UK’s national funding agencies opening applications for 2025-26, now is the time to update our understanding of postgraduate loan options, and highlight anomalies. Doing so reminds us to spot the obstacles students may not see: the metaphorical potholes that can quite literally slow a student’s progress or stop them progressing at all.

    It also helps us ask whether some of these obstacles really need to be there.

    When moving to study reduces the amount you can borrow

    One major factor that prospective students often overlook is how changing their country of residence affects their eligibility for future funding – and how this can happen without them realising.

    Take this real-world example:

    • A student from England completed their bachelors and masters’ in Scotland
    • As many students do, they supplemented their Student Finance England (SFE) Masters loan with part-time work (at their university)
    • They chose to continue to a PhD, having found a supervisor and a place
    • However, their residency had been updated from England to Scotland… meaning they are no longer eligible for a SFE doctoral loan (despite having already received its UG and PGT support)
    • Because Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS) doesn’t offer doctoral loan, they were left in postgraduate funding limbo

    Whilst moving to study doesn’t affect residency status, moving to work does. This prevents people who have moved permanently to work from picking a preferred loan based on their address history. But it introduces perverse pitfalls that potentially incentivise against study mobility. And in some cases, like this one, it could hamper the chances of students from less affluent backgrounds – those who need to work while studying – from progressing to doctoral study.

    The easy solution here would be for each funding organisation to ensure that work during study doesn’t impact residency.

    When you better get it right first time

    Most of the PG loan systems restrict finance for candidates with equivalent or higher qualifications.

    Again, the design is fair in principle, but confusing in practice. Do students readily understand the difference between holding a postgraduate masters, an undergraduate integrated masters or a conferred “Oxbridge MA”?

    And is the principle actually practical? To take a slightly hypothetical example:

    Mark has an MA in Gothic Studies (yes, really). He paid for this himself almost 20 years ago (again – yes, really). He now wants to take an MSc in Data Analytics to support his work analysing prospective PG audience shifts at scale. A master’s loan would help him do so, but he can’t get one. Because he has a self-funded MA in Gothic Studies from 20 years ago.

    In an age of upskilling and reskilling, it’s worth asking if this is really what we want for the UK economy. And no, the LLE won’t help either.

    Should we allow access to the PG loan for courses in priority subjects, and/or where student finance hasn’t previously been awarded? It’s a conversation worth having, but there are no signs that the issue is top of anyone’s list of priorities.

    When the postgraduate student finance system penalises you for being… a postgraduate

    Postgraduate students are, by definition, older than undergraduates. As such, they’re also more likely to have children (or, indeed, other caring responsibilities).

    A childcare grant is offered in England to help support student-parents, but eligibility explicitly excludes anyone not receiving undergraduate student finance or receiving a postgraduate loan. This feels like a fairly difficult needle for a masters student to thread and a clear blocker to seeing more of the UK workforce taking advantage of postgraduate-level training (something Mark has drawn attention to before).

    Perhaps it is time to extend the existing Childcare Grant to postgraduates on similar age and earnings criteria.

    When you could borrow less but pay nothing back

    A more outlandish example, but one that also speaks to the unintended consequences of having multiple loan funding systems.

    Meet Ewan and Evan, two 59 year-olds, financially independent and planning to retire at 60. Both have enrolled on the same MSc History (Online, Part-time, 2 years) at The University of Edinburgh, starting September 2025 with a course fee of £17,100. Here’s where things differ:

    • Ewan is Scottish-resident and eligible for a SAAS loan of £7,000 which is paid directly to the university. He needs to find another £10,100 to cover the fees.
    • Evan, a Welsh-resident can access a SFW loan of up to £19,255, paid directly to him. After paying the course fees, he may have up to £2,155 remaining

    The likelihood is that neither will fully repay their loan given their age and the repayment thresholds. But whereas Ewan has had to find extra money, Evan has studied a masters “for free.

    While there’s no simple fix, it’s crucial that funding agencies continue to provide clarity on terms, conditions and eligibility criteria. Universities should also signpost where to find this definitive information and ideally clarify the difference in funding arrangements to help prospective students better understand their options.

    The importance of professional guidance

    Exploring the nuances of the loan system in this way may feel somewhat obscure, but it allows us to better understand the genuine confusion and frustration that prospective students often feel when navigating the complexities of postgraduate funding, particularly UK postgraduate loans.

    As professionals in the postgraduate space, our aim is not to encourage manipulation of the system, but we do need to understand how its unintended quirks can misdirect students and be ready to guide them when that occurs.

    We also need to stay updated on loan policies and repayment thresholds. That way, we can help students make informed decisions.

    The more we understand the nuances of postgraduate funding, the better equipped we all are to support students in their academic journeys.

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